[rallyfan1986]

Let's find out what the people who are experiencing these pops are doing first, then we can do the same thing.

No pops that I could hear, windows 10, AMD processor, using supplied cable, played using musicbee and foobar

Earphones are only cheap Xiaomi Mi IV Hybrid Dual

 

[Francisk]

Thanks for the confirmation BetterLate and velasfloyd.

 

[eaglesgift]

No pops that I could hear, windows 10, AMD processor, using supplied cable, played using musicbee and foobar

Earphones are only cheap Xiaomi Mi IV Hybrid Dual

I believe it was said that the popping starts to happen after about 30 minutes or so - is everybody testing for at least that long?

 

[rallyfan1986]

I believe it was said that the popping starts to happen after about 30 minutes or so - is everybody testing for at least that long?

I hadn't realised that, but yes, I listened to music for well over an hour

 

[NWTMN1]

I am curious about the ongoing discussion with connecting the Cayin to a computer and the popping problem. I assume you are using the computer to provide the library of music only. You aren't suggesting connecting the headphones to the computer. Being a novice at this I have not understood until this last post what was being discussed. Does the problem only occur in this manner? There is no problem if the music source is coming from the SD card? Thanks for clarifying the problem.

 

[rallyfan1986]

That was my understanding, popping when using it in amplifier mode, playing audio through the PC, headphones connected to the dap.

Although I've never heard any popping in any mode

 

[BetterLate]

No popping here. Six year old i5 running Windows 10. Popping for some (few?) should not discourage you from purchasing. This is great bang for the buck dap. As far as I know it has only been reported when using as DAC

 

[docholliday]

Ok, so let's start a mini poll. I invite all users here to connect their N3 to their computers, and play a selection of files over headphones and listen for pops/cracks/issues. Then come back here and simply report back. I'll start: iMac 27" 2011 - Sierra OS - no pops. Mac mini 2013 - Sierra OS - no pops.

So I let mine play for the last few hours switching tracks occasionally and playing through on others. I have 2 N3's so I could do more than one test at a time.

Note: all using supplied white Cayin cable, files: 2x 2.8MHz DSD, 2x 24/96 FLAC, 2x 16/44 FLAC, 2x MP3 320K, foobar2k, Cayin driver set to Auto buffer size/Standard delay. One N3 with UERR, other with Sony MDR-7506.

On the big box, Win 10 CU, Cayin drivers, no pop. (used this for the whole day yesterday)
On the big box, Win 10 CU, native Win 2.0 drivers, no pop (~3hrs last night)
On a core i5 laptop, 8GB, Win7 Enterprise, no pops (~2 hrs play)
On a Core i7 desktop with Ubuntu 17.01, no pops (~2 hrs play)
Same Core i7, Win 8.1, no pops. (~2hrs play)

VMWare'd MacOS 10.12 - no pops. (~1hr play)
VMWare'd Win10 Anniv, Cayin drivers, no pop (~1hr play)
VMWare'd RedHat Enterprise - no pops (~1 hr play)

I also decided to try the N3 on another test platform - an older Thinkpad Tablet 8. Intel Atom, 2GB, Win10 CU. Used white cable with Nokia micro-USB to USB-A OTG adapter. After 5 minutes, no pop. BUT, heavy loading of the little Atom via two videos playing (Windows Media Player & MPC-HC) instantly caused skipping and popping. I stop the play, it still popped. Unplug and re-plug the N3, popping stopped and played another 15 minutes or so of music (foobar) with no problem.

 

[gLer]

So I let mine play for the last few hours switching tracks occasionally and playing through on others.

On the big box, Win 10 CU, Cayin drivers, no pop.
On the big box, Win 10 CU, native Win 2.0 drivers, no pop.
On a core i5 laptop, 8GB, Win7 Enterprise, no pops.
On a Core i7 desktop with Ubuntu 17.01, no pops.
Same Core i7, Win 8.1, no pops.

VMWare'd MacOS 10.12 - no pops.
VMWare'd Win10 Anniv, Cayin drivers, no pop.
VMWare'd RedHat Enterprise - no pops.

I also decided to try the N3 on another test platform - an older Thinkpad Tablet 8. Intel Atom, 2GB, Win10 CU. After 5 minutes, no pop. BUT, heavy loading of the little Atom via two videos playing (Windows Media Player & MPC-HC) instantly caused skipping and popping. I stop the play, it still popped. Unplug and re-plug the N3, popping stopped and played another 15 minutes or so of music (foobar) with no problem.

This seems to parallel what I've experienced - and not only with the N3. Loading the computer (any computer) while playing music can cause errors that result in popping/scratching noises. For those experiencing the 'pops', try connect the N3 as a DAC and play some music with nothing else running in the background. If the pops disappear, there's your answer (at least one, anyway).

 

[docholliday]

This seems to parallel what I've experienced - and not only with the N3. Loading the computer (any computer) while playing music can cause errors that result in popping/scratching noises. For those experiencing the 'pops', try connect the N3 as a DAC and play some music with nothing else running in the background. If the pops disappear, there's your answer (at least one, anyway).

I just tried taking the little i5 box for another test. I started playing a tracklist on it with foobar, within 30sec, I'd fire up Photoshop and open some big files (1-2GB PSDs). A few seconds after they started rendering, the N3 would skip and tick-tick-tick. Once it starts the tick (USB is out of sync), I have to disconnect/reconnect to get it to quit. If I didn't open the files, play was perfect.

Then, I increased the delay and buffer on the Cayin driver to max. It did not tick or skip until almost 10 seconds into the render. Of course, it also lagged a ton when switching tracks...

 

[docholliday]

This seems to parallel what I've experienced - and not only with the N3. Loading the computer (any computer) while playing music can cause errors that result in popping/scratching noises. For those experiencing the 'pops', try connect the N3 as a DAC and play some music with nothing else running in the background. If the pops disappear, there's your answer (at least one, anyway).

So I dug out an old P8P67 Asus board from the junk pile...threw in an old i5-2500K and 4GB of Corsair Vengeance that was sitting around. Dropped in a test Samsung 250GB Evo and installed Win10 CU base install.

Ran the OC up to a 45x100 multiplier and guess what...it ticked. Disabled the OC on it and all was well, no ticks. Clocked it back up, increased the buffer on the Cayin Control Panel. It still ticked, but took longer to start ticking and was less frequent.

 

[Andykong]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...down-as-storm-closes-schools-and-stock-market

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/201...injured-typhoon-hato-barrels-hong-kong-macao/

Although this is the worst typhoon hit to Hong Kong for half a decade, we actually are better off as Macau and Zhuhai have faced a direct hit and leaded to large scale power failure and accident that lead to casualties.

Cayin (Zhuhai Electronic Equipment) is located at industrial area around 40 miles from Zhuhai city center. Our facilities and staff quarter are damaged fairly severely. A lot of broken windows, several cars are hitted by fallen objects, and two workers were injured and hospitalized. Power supply were resumed at around 5:30pm and communication are gradually in place.

Our factory will probably takes a few days before we get back on track. Let's pray that the repair and resume from aftermath in Hong Kong, Macau and Zhuhai will go very smooth and all injuries will recovery soon.

Update on our recovery from Typhoon Hato.

https://www.facebook.com/CayinAudio/posts/320114925066407

 

[docholliday]

In other news...Sandisk just released a 400GB Ultra micro-SD. I'm sure it'll be a slow write speed (being an Ultra). But at $250, that's really not bad considering what can be carried now on the N3 with this card!

https://www.amazon.com/SanDisk-Ultra-microSDXC-Adapter-SDSQUAR-400G-GN6MA/dp/B074RNRM2B

 

[chellity]

I tried the n3 on my i7 laptop as a DAC and it seemed to actually be usable unlike my good ol i5-2500k build. I mostly only got pops in between changing/skipping songs, which seems to be more in line with what other people are describing here. Yet, this laptop is using same w10 creator's driver as my PC is.

My overclocked i5-2500k desktop definitely has major popping on the peak of every waveform, with either the cayin driver or the w10 driver. I definitely dont get this with my schiit modi 2 using the same w10 driver, or my rock solid sound blaster, which is why I wish it was usable here. I'd be willing to blame my old crappy motherboard that has other issues, yet it works fine with others. Luckily this is still the my favorite DAP for the price..I should be able to use it at uni with my laptop I still want to get a usb c to usb c cable to test, because even if digital cords shouldnt make a difference, the implementation of how it works is what i'm trying to test by using a newer cable.

 

[docholliday]

Update on our recovery from Typhoon Hato.

https://www.facebook.com/CayinAudio/posts/320114925066407

Doh, I posted right at the same time as Andy, I hadn't even seen his posting - the "In other news" isn't meant to point to his posting! It was meant to point to my previous OC test posting!

Andy, looks like your work is cut out for you! I hope those injured get well soon and glad to see that spirits are high!